Vehicles operating in an autonomous mode (e.g., driverless) can relieve occupants, especially the driver, from some driving-related responsibilities. When operating in an autonomous mode, the vehicle can navigate to various locations using onboard sensors, allowing the vehicle to travel with minimal human interaction or in some cases without any passengers.
Motion planning and control are critical operations in autonomous driving. However, conventional motion planning operations estimate the difficulty of completing a given path mainly from its curvature and speed. A typical vehicle includes its front wheels as turning wheels while rear wheels are non-turning wheels. Thus, the front wheels will move prior to the rear wheels, particularly, during a turning action. Most of the conventional vehicles determine a location of the vehicle based on a rear axle of the vehicle. Accordingly planning and controlling of the vehicle are performed based on the position of the rear wheels as driving wheels while the front wheels are turning wheels. Such a configuration causes an unnecessary system delay.